The Machine Takes Down Vegas at the End of the Western Conference Finals

All last night and this morning I was thinking about Sasha Vujacic's waste of a buzzer beater from Game 5. You know, the meaningless one that gave the Lakers an eight point win instead of a five point win? No big deal, right? Sure, it was kind of unsportsmanlike, since he could have held the ball and dribbled out the clock, but it wasn't so obnoxious that any fuss needed to be made.

Until I remembered why I was thinking about it -- the spread. Picture yourself having laid a large chunk of change on the Spurs at +7 as you watch the following video (via AA).



So, um, that would be fairly brutal. Of course, not as brutal, as Darren Rovell points out, as things got in Vegas.

Rovell had covered a similar topic before, so The Machine's shot stood out as particularly painful to him. Even more so when he found out how much cash got dropped.

So I called R.J. Bell of Pregame.com who is really good at number crunching, to ask him how much Vujacic cost those that took the Spurs. Bell said that, from looking at betting data he had access to, that 66 percent of people took the Spurs and the 7.5 points or 8 points.

Bell estimates that the game did about $3 million in bets in Las Vegas, but he estimates that worldwide, the game did about $300 million in action. Bell said that, when considering the line move, that shot swung at least $100 million in bets.

Um, ouch. That's a touch of coin right there. But it's not surprising. There's a euphemism for plays like this that is unprintable here, and while they happen frequently in sports, when a high profile NBA playoff game like this one gets hit up, it's going to be tough on someone. Or several million someones.